The Language Guys have recently won a prestigious award for their innovative language classes at Third Educate North Awards, delivered in association with the Telegraph media group.

The awards were hosted by founder Rob McLoughlin and brought together leading vice-chancellors, principals from the FE, as well as some of the most talented staff in the North’s higher and further education institutions.

Emma Woollard Managing Director of The Language Guys pitched against other talented finalists from leading Universities across the UK and won the University Entrepreneurs Challenge Award and Grant, for her innovative business idea of foreign language tuition in bars and restaurants, a fantastic achievement for both the business and the University of Chester!

Due to Emma’s success, she has been invited to come back next year and be part of the process in talking further about her business and its progression.

Emma said, “I’m honoured to have been selected to receive the award, The Language Guys is a recent start up and I’m amazed at how fast things are moving. We now offer classes in Chester where we are based and also in Liverpool, we have plans to start in Manchester next year. As someone who has both studied and taught languages, I saw an opportunity to take languages out of the classroom and combine learning with cultural and social elements. We offer courses such as French and Wine, Spanish and Tapas and English classes, and people are really enjoying the social element to their learning.”

With Phil Hodari, sponsor of the University Entrepreneurs Challenge Award to The Language Guys

You’re already a native English speaker so you have the world at the tip of your tongue, right? Wrong. If you think you can simply kick back and approach language learning as a quaint pastime you’re already miles behind the rest of the world.

Speaking English natively may present many issues for communicating with those who speak English as a second, third or fourth language. It’s all about clarity. Native English speakers may use slang, idioms and make cultural references without realising how unclear their message is. On the other hand, non-native speakers speak more purposefully and carefully. Their ability to accommodate the needs of another non-native English speaker comes from their enhanced knowledge of languages. Anglophones need to up their game to make sure they are being understood.

Native English speakers must take care to learn more about their own language. And the best way to learn about your native language is to learn another language. Because when you learn another language, particularly in the beginning, you use simple expressions without the use of flamboyant words. With basic language skills you are forced to focus on communicating your message as clearly as possible. Not only this, but you should become more aware of the power of your words.

This is critical in British English, for instance, where native speakers use certain phrases, which at face value mean something different to the more nuanced intended meaning. A common example of which is when somebody asks ‘how are you?’ and a British native speaker might reply ‘not bad’ – with the intended meaning being ‘I am well’, but often misinterpreted as a negative response. This article highlights some other common confusions particularly in relation to British English.

Whilst it is fun to point out the peculiarity of native English speakers and their sometimes bizarre modes of communication, it is important to remember that it is time to adapt. In order to be properly understood it is important to be clear, direct and sympathetic to your listener without patronising them. And this can only really be understood when you too have been in this position attempting to speak a foreign language. So don’t just ‘bear it in mind’ (see here for translation) and see how we can help you to learn another language.

In 2013 the government announced ambitious plans to raise the bar of overall education standards in Britain – particularly for disadvantaged children. With the aim being to achieve a better start at secondary school for pupils, the government loosened the criteria for the assessment of pupil performance – commissioning schools with the ability to remove the levels system and implement their own systems of measuring pupils’ progress.

This should have been a gift to those schools seeking to improve their language programme, who would now no longer need to focus attention on attainment of grade percentages, but could instead focus on delivering holistic language tuition. However, as we previously discussed, British schools are facing a dwindling language skill set amongst its newly qualified teachers. This is hindering British schools’ ability to profit from the new ambitious learning precedent put forward by the government.

And while this is frustrating for the teachers, it is also detrimental to the overall education of the pupils. The pupils essentially miss out on the opportunity to learn a new skill on the same footing as their classroom counterparts, because some pupils, who may experience difficulties in English, have the opportunity to learn a new skill from an equal perspective of other pupils in the class. This presents an essential opportunity for pupils to develop their learning confidence – not only in languages – but in all subject areas. That is to say, an improvement of pupils’ overall learning confidence will impact their performance in other subject areas and thus help them to develop an overall increased educational experience.

This sentiment is echoed in a report by the Guardian and British Academy who published in their article a claim that stated that learning at least one additional language could be helpful in combatting depression. By providing an additional window on the world, people are able to connect with more ideas and people. And being able to connect to different people, histories and cultures is an essential tool for students to learn about wide range of topics in various subject areas. The lesson therefore is that in order to improve the overall standards of education set forth by the government; students must have the ability to open their mind through the world of languages. And while making languages a compulsory subject in primary schools is a big step in the right direction, schools must now ensure that language provision is being adequately provided for.

To get Britain’s next generation fluently conversing in a second language we must adapt our methodology of language learning. In 2014 the government outlined a new initiative to achieve just that. Now it is down to Britain’s teachers to deliver this ambition.

What’s the big plan?

A reshaping of the modern foreign languages GCSE has resulted in a new set of expectations for students. It is hoped that the new course design will equip students with the ‘ability and ambition to communicate with native speakers in speech and writing’. By developing confidence in the student’s communication it is expected that the student will be able to express ideas spontaneously and fluently in their second language.

There isn’t much time.

The government’s ambitions have left teachers with little time to facilitate this transition. Within two years students will be sitting the new language exams. In these new assessments the student will be expected to take part in a spontaneous ten minute conversation.

While this new style of assessment will hopefully result in a higher level of fluency amongst students, it also means that the student will not have due time to prepare a pre-rehearsed monologue. The differences between the necessary skills involved to enable a student to hold a fluent and reciprocal conversation as oppose to memorising a speech are stark. These are skills that will need to be developed in the classroom in good time before the assessments. Specifically, in order to achieve this, the learning attitudes and methodology must be developed.

The benefits of a bilingual education can have benefits for a student’s learning capacity in other subject areas and is even thought to improve the brain’s resilience to diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The American Psychiatric Association reports that the commendable benefits of language immersion can result in children who have an enhanced ability to process sounds and therefore pay attention in a learning situation. Other benefits include improved cognitive ability, social or emotional skills and educational advancement.

It’s not that simple

This all sounds great, but is it really that simple? How can teachers, whose abilities and resources are already stretched, realistically put in to practice such a learning atmosphere? One answer of course, is to start small. By working within in your means, subtle changes can be made to the classroom environment to introduce a second language. One such simple method is bilingual word posters in the classroom. Additionally, students could be encouraged to greet one another in both languages, which could result in a gradual cultural change within the classroom environment.